The final installment of the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder Series, As Good As Dead, was released on August 5, 2021. The first book followed Pip Fitz-Amobi as she attempted to look back at a past murder-suicide in the town for her capstone project. Through this project, she became encapsulated in the mystery as new secrets were revealed and the truth changed her life. Although wishing her mysterying solving days were over, in the second book she gets involved with a disappearance in the town, which ends with Pip traumatized after she witnesses a death. As Good As Dead follows Pip as she attempts to move on after the event, which becomes more difficult as she realizes she has a stalker. After receiving dead pigeons outside her house and seeing chalk stick figures without heads, she realizes it may be from a serial killer from years earlier. She was on the clock to find the killer’s identity before she became his next victim. 

In previous books, Pip proved her ability to solve mysteries, uncovering problems no other could solve. At the endings of both, I was extremely surprised by the ending, and would have never guessed the outcome. In As Good As Dead, clues that appear obvious to almost any reader she can not see. Her inability to see these clues ends up driving the plot of the second half of the book, which I didn’t find very satisfying. Pip ends up in a precarious position which almost leads to her death. Instead she kills her capture, and the rest of the book follows the attempt to cover up the incident. She felt due to the serial killer’s status within her town no one would believe the truth. I feel the book would have been much more interesting if she attempted to reveal the truth throughout the book instead of her covering of a murder. It plagued her sense of justice previously established in the other books. She also balmed the murder on another that had allegedly raped a group of girls. Even though he was proven innocent in court, Pip didn’t believe him to be, causing her decision to frame him. While the hate towards him is understandable, murder and rape are two highly different charges and this punishment was highly excessive and she didn’t have the right to make such a decision by herself. 

While her actions throughout the book didn’t make complete sense, they could be placed on her trauma from the events at the end of the last book, Good Girl, Bad Blood. Pip witnessed a murder which highly traumatized her and impacted her mental health at the beginning of As Good As Dead. It would have been interesting to see her process and overcome the trauma, and it seems that development could occur as she struggles and takes drugs in order to fall asleep. Her problems become ignored by the end of the book as stress builds due to the stalking, but the complete ignorance of this problem by the end of the book shouldn’t have occurred. During this struggle she also begins to idealize the person that committed the murder she saw, due to his relation to her in trying to receive justice. In the first part of the book, she claims she needs to talk to him, but once he is captured and a detective tells her she can’t see him she just accepts it. After this, he is not mentioned again for the rest of the book. Having the desire to meet the murderer would have made sense if there was a payout from it with them meeting again, but nothing ever occurs and just provides a meaningless plot point. Her final action within the book was also probably the least sensical. In order to ensure those she cares for aren’t impacted if she is discovered to be the murderer, as she believed a detective had some suspicion, she decides she must cut all those she loves out of her life. While many of her friends and her boyfriend were involved her family had no knowledge of the event. Even if her relationship was discovered, they did nothing, leading to no consequences for them, causing her ignorance of them to be completely unnecessary. If anything these actions only made her more suspicious, giving greater cause to look into her. There was no true reason to cut everyone out of her life, and only created a disappointing ending.

While the book was okay, it was definitely the worst out of the series. Pip’s actions throughout the book should have stayed truer to her previously established character. If this occurred the second half of the book would have been much more entertaining, with a problem trying to be solved instead of the covering up of a murder. The first part of the book was very entertaining though, but was also really also the only other thing that made me enjoy the book. I would recommend the series to anyone, but would let them know I was disappointed with the ending.